


if we should die tonight, we should all die together

by Navangely



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Spoilers for Battle of the Five Armies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 19:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3500525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Navangely/pseuds/Navangely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo is mourning Thorin and the moments they never had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if we should die tonight, we should all die together

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while listening to I See Fire by Ed Sheeran (which is where the title is from), so I'd recommend listening to it while reading.
> 
> I know phoenixes are not really part of Tolkien's world but I took liberties.
> 
> Betaed by the lovely [halogens](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/halogens/profile/). I'm planning to write more for this beautiful pairing, so if you're interested in betaing, please let me know :)
> 
> Please enjoy!

He is dead.

He is dead and for a moment you wish you were dead too.

The world has frozen and time has yet to take another step forward. It’s quiet and you feel numb as if you have been asleep under the waves of the sea for a thousand years. The silence is grinning at you victoriously while it claims the Mountain along with your heart. You don’t care because you have no use for it anymore. It stopped beating the second the fire in his eyes turned to ashes.

You think about how those fierce blue flames threatened to burn you alive every time your gazes met and how you couldn’t imagine a sweeter way to die. They awoke gently and hopefully, like a new-born phoenix when he talked about Erebor before Smaug, and they rose high when he held the lives of the Company in his hand. You always believed them to be eternal, because you knew that as long as those flames burned, impossible was just a word.

And you think about how wrong you were because the fire has gone out, and now there’s no warmness in those eyes, only the icy cold of the dead.

The wind has stopped chasing the falling snowflakes in the air to tenderly invite his midnight locks to a slow dance. You try to mute your sobs with your hands on your mouth but you can’t stop your tears. They run down your face, leaving a salty trace, falling into the pool of drying blood on the ground between you and him.

You loved his hair.

He often fell asleep next to you on the road to Erebor. He never acknowledged it, but it meant so much to you because Thorin was a man of action and his finding peace in your presence for a few hours spoke louder than his words. You stayed up, watching him while he was wandering in dreamland, and you thought that Mahal must have had a soft spot for him because he carved his face into a piece of art.

His skin was flawless, his jawline strong and his hair a delicious temptation to run your hand through it. And who were you to resist? His raven locks enwrapped your little fingers as if they had been waiting for them and you let out a soundless gasp. It felt like you had buried your hand in the silky water of the lake back home in the summer, with the sun shining high above you while birds played the tune of love and happiness.

It was the last touch of innocence about him and in that moment you felt an overwhelming affection for him. Not for the King Under the Mountain, but for the Prince who had lost his home and did everything in his power to create a new one for his people. His even breathing eventually lulled you to sleep, and before you closed your eyes, your last thought was how wonderful it would be if you could do this while he was awake.

And now you regret that you didn’t tuck his hair behind his ear when he woke up the next morning.

His last words are echoing in your head but their meaning is hidden by a fog that seems to cloud your mind. You only hear his voice, shaking and beaten, but so calm as if death was just a dear friend he would meet at the end of the road. He looked at you as if he couldn’t imagine any other person to spend his last moments with. The blinding white of the ice was a painful contrast to his skin painted scarlet by blood. Yet he was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen because in that moment he was still alive. Then he gasped for air but you still clung onto the last thread of hope because you refused to believe there could be a world in which Thorin Oakenshield wasn’t the King Under the Mountain.

You refused to believe there could be a world in which you would never hear his voice again.

It was music to you, the richest and most euphonious melody you had ever heard. You could listen to him speak all day, but when he sang, oh, when he sang — you felt alive and powerful and ready to take down a dragon for him. When he came into your home with a song about his, you crossed Middle-Earth to help him reclaim it. And if a part of you hoped that one day he would sing for you, just for you, it was only for you to know.

And now you regret that you never asked him to.

His hand is cold and unmoving as you take it in yours. You squeeze it and you want to scream because there’s no reply, but your throat is hoarse and only a quiet sob manages to escape your lips. He was born to be king but his hands belonged to a warrior, a survivor. They were reliable and steady and strong and brought a sense of security whenever he put them on your shoulders or the small of your back. You’ll never forget how perfectly you fitted into his arms when he enveloped you in a tight hug after Azog’s attack. He smelled like earth, like longing, like home, and you felt like you had found the missing piece of your soul.

Later, you wondered when you fell in love with him. Was it then, on the Carrock, before you caught sight of the Lonely Mountain? Was it when he was strewn on the ground like a lifeless doll, and you leaped without thinking to protect him from Azog? When the Company sat around the fire and Balin told you the story of how Prince Thorin became Thorin Oakenshield? Or when you opened your door to him and first set eyes on him?

You don’t know and it doesn’t matter anymore because you never told him. You regret a lot of lost moments, but what you regret the most is never telling him that there was someone who loved him for who he was. You never had the chance to prove to him that you didn’t love his crown, but him, Thorin Oakenshield, the Dwarf who was arrogant, reckless, but brave, good and so achingly beautiful inside and out.

You will never know if he would have loved you back.

Years later you awake from a dream in which you are covered in white sheets, lying in a king-size bed with his arms wrapped around you. You shiver from the feeling of his breath on your neck and it twinges where your heart used to beat at him whispering “amrâlimê” into your ear.

His lips are cold as you kiss him for the first and last time. His hair is wet from your tears as you touch your forehead to his.

“Do you see, Thorin? Can you see the fire in the Mountain?”

He can’t. Not anymore.

You gently close his eyelids and smooth his hair out of his face. He looks peaceful and mighty like a true king. You wish that you could just pretend that he was asleep but the poisonous truth has already cost you your heart, and you know that no amount of lies could ever heal it.

He is dead.

He is dead and a part of you died with him too.


End file.
